Nakota - History of A Misnomer

History of A Misnomer

Historically, scholars classified the tribes belonging to the Sioux nation (or Dakota in a broad sense) into three large language groups:

• Dakota (proper), who were the eastern-most group (the original one) and were called Isáŋyathi or Isáŋathi (whence the Europeanized name of Santee);
• Nakota, who were said to comprise the two central tribes of the Yankton and the Yanktonai, and
• Lakota, who formed the western-most group and were called Thítȟuŋwaŋ (term Europeanized into Teton).

The Assiniboine had separated from what would be called the Nakota grouping at an early time. Their language, called Nakota, became more distinct and unintelligible to Lakota and Dakota speakers.

For a long time few scholars criticized this classification.

In 1978, Douglas R. Parks, David S. Rood, and Raymond J. DeMallie engaged in systematic linguistic research at the Sioux and Assiniboine reservations to establish the precise dialectology of the Sioux language. As a result, they ascertained that both the Santee and the Yankton/Yanktonai referred (and refer) to themselves by the autonym "Dakota". The name of Nakota (or Nakoda) was (and is) exclusive usage of the Assiniboine and of their Canadian relatives, the Stoney. The subsequent academic literature, however, especially if not produced by linguistic specialists, has seldom reflected Parks and DeMallie’s work.

Their conclusions, however, have been fully confirmed by the 23-year-long research carried out in the field by Jan Ullrich. From that he compiled his 2008 Lakota dictionary. According to Ullrich, the misnomer of the Yankton-Yanktonai,

"began with the mid-nineteenth century missionaries among the Santee who over-applied a rule of phonetic distribution. Because the Yankton-Yanktonai dialect uses the suffix -na where Santee uses -da and Lakota -la, the missionaries thought that the l-d-n distribution applied to all word positions. Thus, they believed the Yankton-Yanktonai people called themselves Nakota instead of Dakota. Unfortunately, the inaccurate assumption of a Lakota-Dakota-Nakota division has been perpetuated in almost every publication since then",

gaining such influence that even some Lakota and Dakota people have been influenced by it.

The change cannot be regarded as a subsequent terminological regression caused by the Yankton-Yanktonai people’s living together with the Santee in the same reserves. The oldest texts that document the Sioux dialects are devoid of historic references to Nakota. Ullrich notes particularly that John P. Williamson's English-Dakota Dictionary (1902) lists Dakota as the proper name for the Dakota people. Williamson does not mention Nakota, although he had worked extensively with the Yankton. In his dictionary, Williamson frequently included Yankton variants for Santee entries. Moreover, Ullrich notes that the Yankton scholar Ella Cara Deloria (born in 1888) was among the first to point out “the fallacy of designating the Yankton-Yanktonai groups as Nakota.”.

Currently, the groups concerned refer to themselves as follows in their mother tongues:

• Dakhóta (or Dakhód) – the Santee
• Dakȟóta (or Dakȟód) – the Yankton and the Yanktonai
• Lakȟóta (or Lakȟól) – the Teton (this reference has fallen into disuse. Now they simply call themselves the Lakȟóta)
• Nakhóta (Nakhóda or Nakhóna) – the Assiniboine
• Nakhóda (or Nakhóta) – the Stoney